Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
I am Rushlin Boy and you are listening to the most listened to radio talk show in the country, meeting and surpassing all audience expectations with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Telephone number 800-282-2882 and the email address lrushbaugh at EIBNet.com.
A top Democrat lawmaker predicted on Wednesday that the government will be involved in shaping the future for struggling U.S. media organizations.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Nostralitis Waxman, saying that quality journalism was essential to U.S. democracy, said eventually government would have to help resolve the problems caused by a failing business model.
Are you people hearing me on this?
Waxman and other U.S. lawmakers and regulators are looking into various options to help the newspaper industry hurt by the shift in advertising revenues to online platforms.
Tweaks to the tax code to allow newspapers to spread losses over a greater number of years.
Providing a non-profit structure to allow for public and foundation funding.
And changes to antitrust laws are being considered by lawmakers and policymakers.
Waxman said that eventually government is going to have to be responsible to help and resolve these issues.
He said this to a conference hosted by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on the Future of Journalism.
Free Press, a public interest group, said the search for solutions to the crisis in journalism should be premised on the idea that news gathering is a public service, not a commodity.
Waxman's indication that government has a role to play is both bold and soberly sensible, said Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott on the sidelines of the FTC conference.
This throws everything upside down.
This puts everything on its head.
There is a reason the newspaper business is in trouble, and it's called content, content, content.
The question I have...
No, no.
I just...
Somebody's shouting in the IFB here.
What are they going to make us read it?
That's not the point, you see.
If being read were the point, they would change the content.
It's not the point to make us read it.
There's no way they can do that.
The reason Waxman's getting involved is to make sure their liberal support group, the media, one of the four corners of deceit, doesn't go bankrupt.
They have to keep up their house organs.
This is all about propping them up to keep the Democrat message getting out.
The liberal left message.
It's obscene.
It's outrageous.
Unions threaten to darken Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting over negotiations with NBC.
Just as Thanksgiving has the Macy's Day parade, so does Christmas in New York have its annual lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.
The event, scheduled for tonight, is a time where celebrities gather and NBC grabs ratings with its Christmas in Rockefeller Center tree lighting special.
However, this year the threat looms large that there will be no lights, cameras, or action as NBC remains stalled in negotiations with the local chapter of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, also known as NABIT.
The union claims that since its contract with NBC expired in March, there has been very little progress in the talks, and management has grown increasingly hostile, ignoring the concerns of the union's membership.
Now that Nabit, CWA, the Communications Workers of America, is threatening to strike during the Christmas tree lighting ceremony unless network execs set dates for further negotiations.
They've also set up a website where parties can read the union's case against NBC.
First, Charlie Brown gets canceled because of Obama.
Now, this behind everything bad, behind everything sad, is either a Democrat or a union.
Behind everything sad and everything bad is a Democrat and/or a union.
Let's see.
We did that story already.
You know, I've done half of these stories in the stack just off the top of my head.
Climatologists are just in a sheer panic.
And the climate gate scandal stat continues to grow.
This is James Dellingpole in the UK Telegraph.
It's all unraveling now.
It's all unraveling now, is the headline.
So many new developments.
Which story do we pick?
Maybe best to summarize instead.
After all, it's not like you're going to find much of this reported in the mainstream media.
Number one, Australia's Senate rejects the emissions trading scheme for a second time.
Expect to see a lot more of this.
Politicians starting to become aware of their party's position on anthropogenic global warming is completely out of kilter with the public mood and economic reality.
Kevin Rood's emissions trading scheme, what Andrew Bolt calls a $114 billion green tax on everything, would have wreaked havoc on the coal-dependent Australian economy.
And that's why several opposition liberal front ventures resigned rather than vote with the government on the tax scheme.
So cap and trade in Australia has failed for a second time.
Second story, Danes caught fiddling their carbon credits.
Carbon trading is the emperor's new clause of international finance.
It was invented by none other than Ken Lay, whose Enron would currently be one of the prime beneficiaries in the global alternative energy market if it hadn't been shown to be nearly as fraudulent as the current global warming scam.
It's a license to fleece, to cheat, and rob still jolly embarrassing for the Danes to get caught red-handed.
What with their hosting a conference shortly in which the world's leaders will try straight-faced to persuade us that carbon emissions trading is the only viable way of defeating man-made global warming.
Here's, you know, another way to look at this.
I just sent an email here pictures of Governor Schwarzenegger getting in and out of his Porsche Carrera, which is not exactly a Prius.
And the governator drives around in big SUVs and so forth.
He does have his own jet that he flies, I think, every week from Sacramento back down to Southern California where he lives and might do it every day.
And they're going to be all kinds of private jets flying over to Copenhagen.
Now, when all of these people start driving Priuses and take steamships over to Copenhagen or whatever, or take the, then maybe I'll believe they mean it.
No, I never will believe they mean it.
I'm just making a point.
We know they've made it all up.
It is a pure, unadulterated hoax.
And now Phil Jones, the head honcho at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, has stepped down amidst the controversy while an investigation ensues.
What else do we have?
Climate change again, UK Telegraph climate change.
This is the worst scientific scandal of our generation.
Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with a climate gate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.
And there's more.
Listen, here's a short take from the story.
The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their torturous computer programs always to point in only the one desired direction, to lower past temperatures and to adjust recent temperatures upwards in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming.
This comes up so often, not least in the documents relating to the computer data, that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story.
This is what Mr. McIntyre caught Dr. Hansen doing with his temperature record last year, after which Hansen was forced to revise his record.
And two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.
It's worldwide.
This scandal or this hoax is worldwide.
They didn't even keep the original temperature data.
Nobody can see the baseline from which all of this was used.
All this was created.
So it's an ongoing scandal.
It's getting larger and larger and larger, and it is starting to unravel.
But that doesn't mean that the Greens are going anywhere.
They've got stories out sea level rise will double due to melting of Antarctica.
Lord Moncton is demanding prosecutions of all of these people at the Hadley Climate Research Unit at East Anglia.
It is unraveling, and it's going to be a very difficult thing for these people to continue this charade because as more and more attention is brought to bear on this, it's going to be more and more difficult for traditional media outlets to ignore it.
We'll be right back, folks.
Sit tight.
Hey, Snerdley and the rest of you people out there, remember tomorrow is our own unemployment summit here on the EIB network.
Obama is holding his jobs summit at the White House tomorrow, where he has said that the objective is not job creation.
And yet we are going to do our own job summit tomorrow.
We are going to take calls only from people who are unemployed.
Now, I, El Rushbo, will be doing other items of news out there, but the phone calls tomorrow will be exclusively from those of you who are unemployed.
Now, you might be asking, how are you going to control that?
We have our methods.
We do rely on the honor system.
And Snerdley's pretty good at identifying people who don't have jobs.
We have several test questions.
And we hope that those of you who call will be open about your situation and explain what's happened.
And more importantly, tell us what it is you think needs to happen in order for you to have a better chance of finding a job.
Because that's what, well, nobody's going to get fired after the phone.
What do you mean?
Does it count if you get fired after the phone call?
If who loses their job, what if they get laid off after they call?
What do you mean, because they call?
Is that what you're asking me?
No, okay.
Well, it's a stupid question.
I don't understand the question.
The bottom line is, we're going to be talking to all of you who are unemployed about your ideas, what we ought to be doing in order to create jobs.
Yes, yes, I know it, Snerdley.
That's where I'm going next.
You know, we're not sitting around in my living room having conversation.
This is a radio show.
Now, now, here, I have a dream.
I have a dream for tomorrow.
Wouldn't it be great?
Remember in Detroit, where all those people showed up for those forms to fill out to hopefully the application to get a piece of Obama's stash they were going to pass out in Detroit.
What if, what if the jobless lined up in front of the White House for the jobs summit?
Wouldn't it be great if all the unemployed in the area got the idea that Obama was passing out jobs tomorrow and showed up for his jobs summit, thinking that it was interviews or applications, like the folks did in Detroit?
They thought money was going to be handed out from Obama's stash.
That's what they thought they were getting.
They were just getting forms to fill out to apply for the money.
Now, what Snerdley was telling me is though we're sitting around in the living room having a conversation because he just learned it.
Critics have not been invited to the White House Jobs Summit.
Missing from a partial list of attendees released by the White House are the self-proclaimed voices of business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business, both of which have been critical of Obama's proposed health care overcall.
Confirmed attendees include liberal economists credited with shaping the stimulus package, union leaders, environmentalist wackos, and executives from Google and other blue-chip firms.
Peter Morici, professor at University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, he's going to get lots of recommendations to spend more money.
These are the very same people who gave us the stimulus package.
My feeling is we're not going to get what we need, and that's a complete change in direction on economic policy.
And this guy's exactly right.
This is another show.
Pure and simple.
It's another show.
It's designed to make people think Obama cares about him, is working on trying to get him a job, but it's not about that.
It's about it.
This is a strategy session between Obama and his buddies to create more slush funds.
But there may be trouble in paradise.
I'm holding here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
A piece from the Wall Street Journal.
The rift over economic policy between the Obama administration and the Congressional Black caucus appeared to widen today when a meeting between several lawmakers and White House Chief of Staff Rob Emanuel ended without an agreement, and the lawmakers refused to attend a morning committee vote to overhaul financial rules.
The group's effort to block a vote on the financial regulations could have derailed a major White House priority.
But Barney Frank, my boy Lollipop, narrowly managed to pass the bill without the panel's 10 Congressional Black Caucus members.
Barney said he spoke last night to Rom Emmanuel and Maxine Waters, who's been leading talks for the Congressional Black Caucus and wasn't sure whether a deal could be worked out by Wednesday morning.
Apparently what's going on here is the Congressional Black Caucus, in their infinite wisdom, actually thought that Obama meant he was going to be creating jobs with the stimulus money.
And of course, he's not.
There are no new jobs.
There's nothing happening other than destruction.
And the Congressional Black Caucus wants little action for their constituents.
If it's not going to be jobs, they want some money.
They know there's a big slush fund there and they want some of it.
And so the rift is widening.
And Maxine Waters, it says, in a Wall Street Journal story from about an hour ago, Maxine Waters is holding an afternoon news conference about this today.
Our microphones, as always, will be there.
Have you heard about the big shake-up in the White House, folks?
No, no, no, no, not on the president's staff.
The president of General Motors, the CEO of General Motors, which Obama's company, another CEO, has been canned.
He has following the will of GM board of directors, they dismissed the chief executive, Frederick Fritz Henderson.
He's been there, what, 10 months.
As of this moment, Obama has not fired any new executives at insurance companies, big pharma banks, or Wall Street firms.
Stay tuned for possible developments on that.
They said, the board said, and of course, this is Obama's company, that Fritz Henderson hadn't moved fast enough on progress.
There's nobody that knows how to run General Motors that's running it.
Fritz was a puppet out there.
A quick phone call.
Larry in Turlock, California.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here, sir.
Dittos, tell us about that man.
That's how long I've been listening to you, right?
Oh, my gosh, you're going way, way, way, way back.
I'm an American.
I'm a Vietnam-era veteran, and I'm a truth seeker.
My comment is on that Doug and Pawnee show I saw last night on TV.
I know one when I see one.
I think we found the weapons of mass destruction.
It's called politics of mass destruction.
It's called media of mass destruction.
I witnessed that last night on my TV.
It brings me in mind George Washington is who the president should model himself after.
Lead the troops into battle as George Washington did.
Stop killing my brothers and sisters of the U.S. military, and may you all live to fight another day.
Well, let me just add to this that in the three months that Obama has dithered in making his speech last night, 116 U.S. service men and women have been killed in Afghanistan while awaiting reinforcements that were asked for by their commanders, General McChrystal.
So that is why Larry here says, stop killing my brothers and sisters of the U.S. military.
May you all live to fight another day.
Weapons of mass destruction, you think it's the media?
I know it's the media.
They're telling us.
You cannot tell your enemy your strategy and then expect not to be getting your butt kicked.
Larry, it's not just that.
I know we told him a strategy.
Again, I want to put this out there because this is chilling when you look at it this way.
Instead, imagine this.
Instead, last night of seeing our president on TV say what he said, imagine they were urged to watch a national address, a world address, from the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar.
And in his speech, Mullah Omar says, We are going to train 30,000 new terrorists.
We are going to make them kill us, and we are going to make them mean.
And then, in two years, we are packing up and leaving for Pakistan.
Would we not be declaring victory over that?
Would we not be thinking Mullah Omar just surrendered?
He huffed and puffed.
He's going to train 30,000 new terrorists.
And then in two years, they're packing up for Pakistan.
We'd be throwing parties.
We'd be saying we won.
What do you think they're doing wherever they are in their caves in Pakistan and Afghanistan after hearing the president essentially say the same thing last night?
You know, my friends, it just never fails.
Even after 21 years, it never fails.
I have earned and achieved and sustained the number one position in talk radio for 21 years.
And yet, people persist in sending me emails suggesting I'm not doing it right.
Rush, you're being distracted by all this Afghanistan stuff.
What about health care?
What about healthcare?
What about healthcare?
Ladies and gentlemen, my eye is never off the ball.
Would you be interested in knowing that $15, what is it, $15 billion in cuts for nursing homes are part of the health care bill?
That is the elderly, by the way.
I think it's 15.
It might be 30, but $15 billion in cuts for nursing homes.
That's not insignificant.
And see, the dirty little secret is we're not going to need nursing homes if the seasoned citizens are not treated for diseases that would sustain their lives.
It's that simple.
But our friends at the Heritage Foundation, they pay attention to this all day long, all week long.
I'm in constant contact with our good buddies at the Heritage Foundation.
They have scholars over there.
They have researchers over there.
And they're putting a laser-like focus on what's being said and proposed.
And fear not, my friends.
You will know before anyone else does.
They'll make that information available to me and they make it available to you.
It's at askheritage.org.
Hundreds of thousands of you are members of the great and dynamic heritage foundation.
You already know what to expect, a vigilant eye that will expose all the details.
And they'll also be working with conservatives in the Senate on innovative solutions that are real and patient-based as everybody works together to try to stop this.
Now, this kind of fight does not happen without the Heritage Foundation.
They are involved with Republicans on the Hill policy-wise.
And if you're in the audience and as outraged as anyone over what's being attempted with healthcare, then one way to fight back is by staying informed and supporting the Heritage Foundation as a member so that they can continue their work.
All you do is go online to askheritage.org and just sift through the reams of user-friendly information on your way to becoming a member.
I mean, you get to see a lot of stuff before you join just to see what's available to you.
The membership is growing every day, but only because people are making a commitment to preserving and fighting for genuine conservative ideals.
There's strength and good ideas, and there's growing numbers there, too.
So join the Heritage Foundation today at askheritage.org.
Tim in Dayton, Ohio.
Great to have you with us, sir.
Hello.
Yes, thank you, sir.
I heard you mention earlier that Chris Matthews called the West Point Academy there the enemy, and then you played the soundbite a little later on.
First of all, let me say I do not agree with his calling that Academy the enemy.
That was quite extreme.
Well, he said the enemy camp.
Going to the enemy camp.
But after you played the soundbite, I realized the context was less than warm and friendly as far as the reception was.
And again, not like an enemy, but it was not friendly like a good friend would be.
But again, I disagree with it because the simple truth, it would be like if two people disagreed and one called the other Satan for disagreeing, that would be the extreme example of doing that.
But again, the context.
Wait a second.
I'm not sure what you're saying.
Are you saying you understand why Matthew said it?
Well, again, I don't agree with it, but yes, I do understand it.
Okay.
Why did he say it?
He said it to, I guess, provide an extreme allegory to being like an enemy in that it was not warm and friendly.
I mean, an enemy would not be warm and friendly to a person.
And that was kind of his extreme allegory.
And again, I do not agree with it because that would be like two people disagreeing and one calling the other Satan for disagreeing.
No, it's not like two people disagreeing.
Yeah.
You have the president of the United States who is the commander-in-chief.
He's their boss.
He's their inspirational, motivational leader.
Well, by design.
For a member of the vaunted United States state-controlled media to suggest that we have a president that would consider a military academy enemy territory.
Yeah.
Whoa, what have we done to ourselves?
This is like saying, if you're a chicken farmer, hey, let's have Colonel Sanders over.
I don't, I do not.
There is no context here.
This is outrageous.
It's outrageous that we have come to this, that it is understood that we got a president who, when he goes to the military academy, is treading in enemy territory.
Stop and think about that.
It'd be one thing if the president were going to go have a talk with the Taliban troops at whatever their training academy is, but he went to ours.
I can understand the president's going to enemy territory if he's going to go over to Afghanistan or Pakistan or whatever, but not to West Point.
My best Howard Dean impersonation.
Let's, you know, folks, there's a lot of people on our side today trying to sound reasonable.
A lot of people on our side.
The conservative side saying, we must support our president in this.
We must, we must not be partisan on this issue.
This national defense, national security.
We must get behind our president on this.
No, because our president gave his left-wing base the policy victory here.
The president just surrendered.
Send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan for what?
Did he spell it out?
I didn't hear it.
Now, if there's a plan, he should.
You know, you don't have to give away the playbook here, but you can say what the objectives are to rally the troops.
We're not going to let them take the cities.
It's all you have to say.
These troops are going to protect the cities.
We're going to make sure the Taliban does not retake that country and get a stranglehold on it and enable Al-Qaeda to come back in.
We're going to not give up control of the cities.
And that's what we intend to do.
Motivation, inspiration, rally.
None of that.
Oh, but we set the troops over there.
I'm bringing them home.
Just in time for my campaign.
Again, I ask you: we're watching TV last night, and instead of Obama preempting Snoopy, it's Mullah Omar.
And Mullah Omar has got one bad eye, one good eye.
And he stutters, even when he has a teleprompter.
But he's sitting there and he's reading the Al Jazeera teleprompter.
He's standing in front of whatever machine gun backdrop that they stand in front of over there.
And he says, you do not scare us.
We kill you.
We continue to kill you.
We are going to train 30,000 new terrorists for Allah.
We are going to Elahu Akbar to you.
And then, in two years, we are leaving.
We are going to Pakistan.
We are leaving you, the country.
We hate you.
What would we be laughing at the guy?
So you have to imagine Mola Omar and the boys sitting there watching Barack Obama say the same thing.
While he admits that we've made some mistakes and essentially says, hey, look, these guys have a point.
You know, we have made some mistakes here as a country.
I know that militant Islamists do not drink, but that speech last night could have made him break out the champagne.
As a first, folks, I mean, that's how bad it was anyway.
Hi, how are you?
Welcome back.
Rush Limbaugh here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
All right, the Tiger Woods update.
This is from the Chicago Sun-Times.
The continuing revelations of alleged Tiger Woods infidelities has placed the golfing Megastars management team in what one insider called panic mode early this morning.
Despite the release of photographs of Woods looking a bit too friendly with a woman in a Las Vegas nightclub and a recording, allegedly of a phone call Woods made to former Tool Academy reality show star Jamie Grubbs, the Woods source insists that Tiger still believes the stonewalling the press on this is the best approach.
Also, don't look for Woods' wife Ellen to be moving out of the couple's mansion anytime soon.
Tiger's spouse is reportedly being paid a hefty seven-figure amount, immediately transferred into an account she alone controls to stick with her husband.
On top of that, my source indicated that Ellen Nordregren Woods, the mother of Tiger's two children, has demanded and is getting a total rewrite of the pre-nup, making the incentives for her to remain Mrs. Tiger Woods even more enticing.
At this point, the couple needed to remain married for 10 years in order for Woods' wife to collect a Splitsville settlement of 20 mil.
I'm being told that time frame has been shortened and the dollar amount increased substantially.
By the way, the author here is a guy named Bill Zweeker, and it is Chicago Sun-Times.
Perhaps most important of all, the Woodses have already begun intense marriage counseling at their home with a counselor who has been conducting sessions several times daily.
Look, I'm passing no judge.
By the way, this port, can we say Obama failed to save a job?
What with the GM CEO being canned?
He didn't save a job there, did he?
So, now, I don't even know whether this is true.
It's Chicago Sun-Times.
But it's out there.
He's paying her off seven figures for those of you in Rio Linda.
I mean, we're talking millions here.
A rewrite of the prenup.
Oh.
Marriage counseling.
You know, Sturdly, I have to be honest.
Back at the break at the top of the hour, I'm back in Snerdley's office.
And Snerdley has, since this whole thing broke, he has not understood it.
He doesn't understand why everybody's surprised.
What do you have here?
He says, you have a rich, good-looking star athlete having an affair too?
This is news.
What's the big deal about this?
Snerdley said his grandmother told him once, if there's a man involved, you can guarantee this is going to be happening.
That's what your grandmother told you.
All right.
So here is what I told Snerdley.
It says, it's something you're not getting here.
The reason why this is such a big deal is that the image that everybody has of Tiger Woods is not just Mr. Perfect, but here is a great-looking guy, a beautiful woman for a wife.
Hundreds of millions of dollars does not have to do one thing he doesn't want to do.
Everybody thought that Tiger Woods was the epitome of what everybody's trying to reach, and that is universal happiness.
And now people are stunned to learn that with all that he has and all that he's achieved, he was miserable at home.
And that's what, my God, because people think, well, if I had that money and if I had all he's got, if I had to play golf that way, and I was married to his wife, that's what people think.
So when this gets, and it's not just, it's not just, it's not just one.
And then these details, whether they're true or not, all these phone sex messages, all these texts, and so forth.
It's a side of Tiger Woods nobody thought existed.
Remember, this guy was Mr. Perfect.
This was Mr. Clean and Pure as the wind-driven snow, as far as everybody was concerned.
He is not the typical good-looking rich athlete, I guess is the point, Snerdley.
And Snerdley had to admit, yeah, I should have consulted you first before generalizing about this, because you always have a perspective that I never consider.
And that's true.
To the phones, we go to Robin in Aspen, Colorado.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Mr. Limbaugh.
Hello.
Hi.
Hi.
I kind of wanted to say, you know, I hope the Raiders win over the Steelers.
It'd be great if the Steelers did go home after the first half.
That would be tremendous for us.
You're a Raiders fan?
Yeah, unfortunately.
Oh, man.
It's not easy, but I'm a loyal Raiders fan.
Pardon me.
I also just wanted to say real quick, if you just give me one second, what a tremendous thing it has been for me and my growth into manhood to have you as a teacher and an example.
And I wanted to tell you that I really appreciate you and everything that you do because there was a time in my life when I didn't know exactly what direction was best.
And I started listening to you, and it put everything into the right perspective for me.
And it helped me to attain moral clarity.
And thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
I really do.
It's all well and good, but I wouldn't call myself a total success.
No?
I mean, if you're still a Raiders fan?
Well, you know, I'm not perfect.
I'm striving.
Well, that's what Tiger's saying.
He's not perfect.
Look, let me give you some hope here.
If the Pittsburgh Steelers can lose to the Kansas City Chiefs, they can lose to the Oakland Raiders.
I feel slightly better.
I don't think it's going to happen.
They're going to get Rothlessberger back.
And the coach, Mike Tomlin, said after the game, after they lost to Baltimore late Sunday night, said we are going to unleash hell in December.
That's from the movie Gladiator, which is one of his favorite movies.
You've watched it night before the game.
It's unlikely that they're going to lose to the Raiders, but if they lose to the Chiefs, I mean, the Chiefs, the Raiders beat the Chiefs.
Yeah, that was a fluke, though.
Well, what do you?
Yeah, I have to give you that.
At least you have your team in respect.
Robin, thanks for the call.
I'm out of busy broadcast moments here because we have to go through a hard break, but thanks much.
I appreciate it.
We'll be right back.
Okay, now remember, folks, tomorrow is our own jobs summit, our own unemployment summit when we go to the phones on the Rush Limbaugh program tomorrow.
L.A. Times headlined today.
Barbara Aaron Reicho, a well-known feminist, I didn't get a chance to get to this.
We need a new women's health movement.
The uproar over mammogram guidelines shows how the feminist movement has strayed.
I'll have the details of this for you tomorrow as we incorporate regular happening news at the same time we take our phone calls from you, the unemployed, to hear what you think about what needs to be done.